


The One Where Sam Needs A Hug

by Moorishflower



Series: A Cold Academic Hell [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, Sam is pretty sure that his advisor is Satan, or maybe some sort of ancient Mesopotamian god of hopelessness and destruction, but there's also Gabriel, who's confusing and distressingly, unconventionally attractive. Add to that his brother's weirdness and upcoming finals, and Sam really wants nothing more than a long, drama-free nap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Sam Needs A Hug

Thanksgiving break, Sam has always said (well, at least since he started college, anyways) is like the Spam of breaks. It’s almost a full break, just like Spam is _almost_ made of real meat, but when you’re craving a steak, and all you get is Spam, there’s always a part of you that feels less than satisfied. So Sam explains it to his brother, who will understand, soon enough, what he means about one week not being nearly enough.

“By your third Thanksgiving or so, you sort of start to hate it,” he says.

“Two of them is my limit, dude,” Dean points out. “Associate’s degree, remember? Two years.”

“You know I’m going to try and change your mind on that.”

“It’s not like we have a ton of money to waste on my education.”

“I don’t think it’s a waste if it’s paying for college.”

“Sam, just…drop it.”

Sam had been looking forward to a nice, quiet Thanksgiving, but apparently Dean isn’t willing to give him even that – he’s sulky and quiet for the next few days, right up until Sam suggests that, since it’s Thanksgiving, they ought to actually go out and buy _food_. He remembers his childhood Thanksgivings: a bucket of extra crispy KFC, the family meal, with the mashed potatoes that Sam wasn’t, to this day, absolutely sure were actually potatoes, and the biscuits, and the baked beans. He grew up thinking that that was what people did on Thanksgiving, until the one year when he was invited to spend the holiday with Stephanie Martin and her family. They’d spent a few months in Minnesota that year, because Dean had gotten into a fight, and he’d broken his arm. Sam still remembers how surprised he’d been when he had stepped into Stephanie’s kitchen and seen the turkey for the first time. Ever since then, he’s tried to celebrate the holiday with a bit more class than Kentucky Fried Chicken.

So, he drags Dean to the store, contemplative and silent as he is.

(“Dean, are you ready?”

“Huh?” Dean’s eyes are distant, his expression vague – he’s a thousand miles away, and Sam sighs.

“To go _shopping_.”)

They drive to the grocery store, and some of Dean’s melancholy seems to evaporate, because on the way there he jokes, and punches Sam’s arm, and Sam can’t help but go along with it, because he wants so badly to believe that his brother is okay, that there’s nothing wrong, even though, deep down in his gut, it feels as though something is different. Something has changed.

They buy a turkey. Potatoes. Onions, herbs, cranberries for a sauce, butter, fresh bread, all the things that Sam can remember having at Stephanie’s house. They even buy sweet potatoes, even though Dean, who has only ever seen the sweet potato casserole, not the sweet potato itself, initially objects to having something so tuberous, and yet so obviously not a proper potato, in the shopping cart.

(“What the fuck is a sweet potato?”

“It’s orange and you put marshmallows and cinnamon-butter on it. You like it.”

“That’s a _potato_?”)

Sam even buys a few bottles of wine, ignoring Dean’s knowing wink, with the idea that maybe…maybe he’ll invite someone over. Jessica? Ruby? Ruby’s been nice to him.

Unbidden, his mind snaps back to the close, crowded pathways of the advising cubicles, and how, when Sam had turned around, he had been looking directly down at Gabriel. His eyes were the color of nutmeg.

Sam shakes his head as he and Dean load everything into the Impala. Dean twirls the key around his forefinger, and says, “We should deep fry the turkey.”

“Uh, no.”

“Come _on_. It’s bold! Innovative!”

“And going to give you a heart attack. You already eat too much junk as it is.”

“Aw, Sammy, you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It _is_ a bad thing.”

The drive back to the apartment is full of easy, brotherly banter – jokes and insults alike, and for a little while Sam lets himself feel as though things are under control. Let’s himself feel like Dean is okay, and _he’s_ okay, and that he’s over Jessica, he really is.

But Dean, obviously, is not, because when Sam suggests (his breath hitching on the name, because for a second he had almost formed his lips around a hard “g”) that they invite Jessica to their Thanksgiving celebration, Dean glares at him.

“You two broke up.”

“But we’re still friends.”

“You _broke up_. She lost her holiday privileges when she decided you weren’t good enough.”

“That’s not what happened…”

But Dean’s expression is a mixture of sullenness and anger. It’s the expression of a man well and truly set in his beliefs, so Sam purses his lips and shuts up. He doesn’t say anything about the sound that had almost left his throat, because it’s stupid. Inviting an advisor to Thanksgiving dinner? And an infuriating, irritating, unprofessional advisor, at that? Ludicrous. Besides, Dean would never let him hear the end of it. Gabriel’s…what, ten years older than him? Fifteen? Not that Sam’s _considering_ it, but still. There are logical reasons behind his denial, and he’s just hashing through them.

The rest of the drive home is silent, with Sam looking out the window while Dean drives, his knuckles white against the steering wheel. Slowly, though, something in Dean’s shoulders relaxes, and by the time they get back to their apartment he’s making tentative jokes, and by the time they actually get _into_ the apartment Dean is trying to balance a sweet potato on his head while Sam tries to shove the turkey into their tiny sink so that it can defrost in cold water. All is, Sam thinks, as it should be.

Except he can’t shake the feeling that something about Dean is different, but every time he tries to figure out what it might be he’s interrupted by the memory of golden-brown eyes.

~

Thanksgiving is both a success and a disaster rolled into one. Sam makes the sweet potatoes and the cranberry sauce while Dean, grumbling about how he didn’t know cooking was so much work, prepares the turkey by haphazardly shoving butter and herbs underneath the skin. Letting Dean do something as complicated as oven-roasting a turkey is, obviously, a mistake – at some point Sam remembers that Dean isn’t actually very good at following (or even reading) recipes, so he opens the oven to check on the turkey while Dean is in the bathroom, only to find that half the bird is smoldering merrily, the other half dangerously close to following suite.

But, aside from the turkey (which they do manage to salvage), the day is quiet. Lacking a dining room, and with the kitchen table not actually being large enough to hold all the food, they carry all the pots and dishes out into the living room, settling down on the floor and eating with their plates balanced on their laps. Dean laughs and calls it a picnic. They sit there and watch television, side by side, and every time a Christmas commercial comes on they both groan. “It’s not even fucking December yet,” Dean says, and Sam makes a soft sound of agreement.

After that, it’s just a matter of cleaning up the dishes and piling all the pots and pans in the sink to be washed later, and, just like that, Thanksgiving is over. Even though it’s still early in the day, the main event is finished, and Sam, lacking anything else to do (and still vaguely wishing that he’d been able to invite someone to join him and his brother for the holiday), does what he always ends up doing when he’s bored: his laundry. He sorts everything into light, dark, and denim, and runs it all through the wash while Dean sleeps off the post-Thanksgiving dinner food coma on the living room couch. It’s only when Sam hears the sound of Halo being booted up, a few hours later, that he realizes that he’s spent…what, maybe an hour and a half with his brother today? Not counting the time they spent cooking, since both of them were more occupied with the food than with each other. It was only during the dinner itself that they actually paused and _talked_ to each other.

With that in mind, Sam gathers up the clothes that are already dry and carries them out into the living room, where Dean is sitting upright on the couch, staring at the television like it might provide him the answers to all his problems. Sam drops the laundry basket to the floor, and then settles down in the easy chair next to the couch. He pulls out two socks that look like they belong together (they’re the same color, anyways) and folds the tops over, then tosses them back into the basket.

“I have a problem,” Dean says. Sam glances up from his socks, hands stilling. _Of course you have a problem,_ he thinks. _You’ve had one ever since you went to go see your advisor, but you’ve been acting like everything is okay, even when it isn’t._ He wonders if Dean will finally tell him what’s been running through his brain for the past few weeks.

Still, if Sam just outright _asks_ , his brother will think he’s trying to initiate a _moment_. So Sam lets his half-folded pair of socks rest in his lap for a moment and says, “Oh God. Is someone dead?”

“What? No.”

“Pregnant?”

“ _No_ , Jesus Christ, Sammy.”

Sam snorts. “Well, I mean, that’s not exactly an encouraging way to start a conversation.”

“Your _face_ isn’t encouraging.”

Sam irritably blows his bands away from his eyes. “So, what’s the big problem?” And Jesus Christ, the _look_ that Dean gets…almost like a cornered animal. Sam’s on high alert for something horrible ( _I’ve accidentally gotten us two million dollars in debt,_ or _I might have promised your right kidney to a mob boss in return for a rare part that I need for my car)_.

But what Dean says is, “What’s your opinion on, uh…interoffice relationships?”

For a second, Sam is struck with relief – no debt, no mob bosses, nothing major – and then he realizes that Dean is staring at him, expectantly. Sam thinks of brown eyes and a wicked smile, and he panics, and feigns obliviousness.

“What?”

“Dating someone who works with you.”

“I know what it means, Dean, but I can’t really imagine you dating Bobby. Or Ellen, for that matter.”

“Not _me_ , I just mean…in general.”

“Oh.” Sam carefully puts his paired socks into the laundry basket, next to his still-unfolded sweatpants and shirts. _I haven’t said anything,_ he reminds himself. _There’s no way Dean knows, unless I’ve started talking in my sleep again._ “I guess I don’t really feel one way or the other about it. I mean, if it works out, that’s awesome, but if it doesn’t work out it could be weird.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean pauses, as if hesitant, but then forges forward anyways. “What about…a teacher dating a student?”

Sam chokes on nothing, but manages to quickly turn it into a snort. _Shit, I’ve started talking in my sleep again. Play it cool._

“I don’t mean in like, high school,” Dean clarifies.

Sam tries to think of how he might have answered this question as little as a month ago. It’s surprisingly difficult. “You’re talking about a professor and a college student? It’s…hard for me to say. I mean, on the one hand, I don’t really approve because of the potential for abuse in the relationship. Trading sex for better grades, that sort of thing. But, on the other hand, if both people are adults, and they’re both consenting…And as long as the relationship stays off campus, I guess there’s really nothing I can say about it. Most colleges don’t allow that sort of thing, though.” And then, adding quickly, “Why? You know someone who’s dating a professor?”

“No,” Dean says. He looks uncomfortable. “Just curious.”

“So what’s your problem, then?”

Dean turns back to Halo 2, his back hunched. “My problem is that you’re sitting there folding laundry while there are aliens to fight,” he says. “Hurry up and finish.”

Sam rolls his shoulders, feeling as though he’s narrowly averted the apocalypse. Sure, Dean hadn’t said anything _outright_ , but now Sam knows what’s been bothering him all week. Problem is, he can’t tell if Dean is disapproving or just weirded out, and there’s no way to tell for sure without asking him directly. And if Dean _doesn’t_ actually know what ( _who_ ) Sam’s been thinking about…

 _There’s nothing there,_ Sam thinks, and quickly begins to fold his shirts. _Nothing there at all. Gabriel’s annoying and probably married to someone who loves him despite that._

Sam drops his folded shirts into the laundry basket.

 _Probably._

~

Dean keeps freaking out over…something. Over finals, Sam thinks, although he doesn’t discount the possibility that Dean is secretly freaking out over the _thing which will not be discussed_. Sam chooses to believe that it’s just the stress of the end of the semester approaching, though, because otherwise he won’t be able to sleep at night for fear that Dean will show up at the edge of his bed, carrying a fucking lantern or something, saying that he _knows what Sam is thinking_.

Sam shakes his head and tries to pay attention to what Dean is talking about.

“…and I’m having trouble sleeping. Not _bad_ , but I mean, I wake up like an hour earlier and I can’t get back to sleep. Finals, man. Fucking finals.”

Sam eyes the fast food places that litter the student center, trying to decide if he wants a salad or some pizza. Dean might have some sort of fit if he sees Sam eating a pizza – for some reason, Dean’s got it into his head that Sam eats nothing but salads and grilled chicken breasts. To be fair, Sam does try to eat healthy, but sometimes you just really want a big helping of grease. “Go and talk to Mr. Novak.”

“What?”

Sam shrugs. “That’s what they’re there for, you know.”

“No, that’s what the student health center is there for. They’ve got a psychiatric…section. Thing.”

“Sure, but advisors are trained psychologists.”

Dean’s expression is beyond compare – like someone just told him that not only do aliens exist, but also that Sam has been one all along. Shocked comprehension, that’s what it looks like.

“I don’t want to bother him,” Dean says quickly. “And also? I don’t need a psychologist.”

“Technically, you don’t need a _psychiatrist_.”

“What?”

“Well, there’s a difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist…”

Dean makes a soft, frustrated sound and buries his face in his hands. Sam thinks about the kind of pizza he wants to get. Classic cheese? Oh, but they’re having that special on Hawaiian pizza today…and Sam _does_ like pineapple. Almost as much as he likes people who like to laugh and have eyes the same color as…

He shakes his head. _No. Don’t go there. Don’t._

“I don’t really care either way,” Dean mutters, “because I’m not going.”

Sam frowns. “Dean, you’re stressed. It’s your first year, your first round of finals. You’re allowed to need someone to talk to.”

There’s something after that – something about Sam and role-reversal and Dean still not wanting to go talk to his advisor, but Sam is distracted. The noise of the students getting their lunch all around them, Dean’s pinched look when Sam (he _thinks_ ) tells him that he’s going to be late for class, the sound of music being played, somewhere, outside…all of it is cut through by the memory of Gabriel laughing. His eyes had seemed more than just brown in the dim light of the advising center – they had seemed almost gold, like there were fireworks going off behind them, lighting them up. And…and Sam’s never gone for short guys before - he’s never gone for guys at _all_ \- but something about Gabriel just seems to _fit_.

“Shit,” he says aloud, but his voice is lost in the flurry of activity that surrounds him.

After a moment, Sam lowers his head, resting his forehead on his hands, feeling as though, somehow, he’s missing something.

~

Dean goes to see his advisor before the end of the semester (before finals week, even), which is good. Sam’s proud of him for that, because it means that, however reluctant he might be, there’s a part of him that recognizes that he isn’t invincible, and it’s okay to ask for help sometimes. That part might be buried under bravado as soon as the meeting with Mr. Novak is over, but for now he’s listening to it.

However, _Sam_ goes to see his advisor, too, which is bad.

Zachariah Adler is the personification of all the worst things on the planet, and this is coming from Sam, who generally tries to sees the best in people before he’s willing to notice their flaws. So, when Sam tells people that Mr. Adler is unhelpful, patronizing, and often not even in his office at all, he isn’t exaggerating.

“Sticking with that pre-law degree, I see,” Mr. Adler says. He peers at the screen of his desktop, sitting ramrod straight in his swivel chair. His charcoal suit and his dark, greying hair both serve to make it seem like he isn’t just sitting in the chair, but rather is a part of it. For some reason, Sam feels intensely disturbed by the idea.

“Yes, sir,” he says, wanting to get this over and done with as soon as possible.

“Then I’m sure you’ve realized by now how difficult it is. There’s still time for you to switch majors, you know.”

Sam swallows. _Bite your tongue._ “I’ve gotten good grades in all my classes. It’s not as hard as all that.”

Mr. Adler steeples his fingers, holding them in front of his mouth as if in contemplation. _Contemplating how to insult me some more,_ Sam thinks miserably. Sure enough…

“I’ve been thinking, Mr. Winchester, that you’d be more suited to something else. Something less…strenuous.”

Sam closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. _It’s his tone,_ he thinks. _He always sounds so goddamn smug. Like he’s so much better than me._ Out loud, he says, “Respectfully, sir, I’ll have to disagree with you. I think I’ve shown that I take my classes seriously, and that I’m good at what I’m doing. I _enjoy_ it.”

“It’s easy to say that you enjoy something when you have been conditioned to believe it is your destiny.”

Sam narrows his eyes. “ _What_?”

“I did some reading on you, Mr. Winchester. Your past isn’t buried as deep as you thought it was.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

“It isn’t that hard to get a hold of newspapers from Lawrence, you see. Especially considering that you and your brother made the headlines.”

Sam freezes. _God._ “I…”

“A pity about your mother. A tragedy, really. What was it that caused the fire in the first place? Arson, did they say?”

Sam clenches his fists against the armrests of the chair he’s sitting in. Mr. Adler is one of the few advisors who actually gets an office, rather than a cubicle. It means he ought to get more comfortable chairs for the students to sit in, but he still uses the small, stiff-backed plastic ones. Sam feels cramped, and uncomfortable. Too large.

“What are you saying,” he grits out, and Mr. Adler smiles at him.

“All I’m saying is that, considering the state of your father after your mother’s death, perhaps it might be best to…choose another major. One that would not be feeding into his desire for revenge.”

“You know _nothing_ about my family,” Sam snarls. “You don’t know anything about my father, or my mother, or my brother, and you sure as hell don’t know anything about _me_.”

“I know enough,” Mr. Adler says softly. “I know your father was an alcoholic, and a very, _very_ disturbed man, and I know that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Mark my words, Mr. Winchester, there will come a day when you look back on your life and realize that I was right.”

There’s a sound, ringing in Sam’s ears, and it takes him a moment to recognize it because Sam doesn’t get angry. Dean is the one who gets mad, gets righteously indignant, and Sam has always been the calmer one, the voice of reason.

It’s no wonder he doesn’t recognize the sound of his own teeth grinding together.

He shoves his chair away from Mr. Adler’s desk and then stands, all in one smooth movement. The chair almost topples over, but it rights itself seemingly at the last minute. Mr. Adler scowls, and opens his mouth – probably to tell Sam that this is proof, that if he can’t control his temper he isn’t suited for a career in law.

Sam doesn’t give him the chance.

He leaves, and doesn’t look back.

~

The administration building is large enough that you can wander in it for a good ten minutes or fifteen minutes or so before you wind up back in the front lobby, and that’s exactly what Sam does. Mr. Adler’s office is upstairs, so Sam sticks to the main floor for a while, moving from the tastefully decorated waiting area, to an empty office, to another waiting area, where a secretary (he doesn’t look much older than Sam) stares at him until he leaves the room. By then, he’s covered most of the first floor, which means he has the choice of either leaving, or moving to the sub levels.

Sam glances out one of the many windows. The sky is beginning to cloud over, dark and ominous. Snow is on the way, or freezing rain, but either way Sam doesn’t want to be caught out in it. If he wants to get back to the apartment before it starts, he should leave now.

Instead, he turns around and heads for the stairs that lead down into the basement. It’s almost an instinctual movement, and certainly not one that he thinks about – not until he’s halfway down the stairs already, and by that time, well, he might as well walk all the way down, right? Maybe he’ll be able to find Dean’s advisor and talk to him. There’s probably a confidentiality clause in the guy’s contract, but maybe if Sam can get an idea of what he’s like, he’ll understand if Dean is actually reassured about finals, or if he’s just faking it.

The first thing he notices is that someone has taken down the sign – the rainbow-lettered sign – that had originally pointed the way towards the advising center.

The second thing he notices is that his eyes feel hot. He reaches up to rub them; his hand, thankfully, doesn’t come away wet, but he knows the possibility is there. Sam swallows. He can feel the urge to just leave pounding against the inside of his chest, a frantic bird of panic. No one has to know. He’s so close to graduating – and he’s done well by himself so far. He’s scheduled all his courses on his own, and he knows exactly what he needs to take in order to graduate. He knows how many credits he’ll be taking for the next three semesters. He’s _ready_ , and if he tells anyone about Zachariah…he _should_ tell someone, before Zachariah pulls that shit on someone else.

God, what if it had been _Dean_ , instead of Sam? Dean would have punched him.

 _Sam_ would have punched him. No one messed with Dean but him. No one.

The panicked feeling in his chest eases, a little bit. The act of making an actual decision is somehow freeing. Taking a deep breath, Sam descends the last few steps and finds himself standing in the middle of the pathway that winds its way between the many cubicles. The lights are dim; he reaches up and rubs at his eyes again, just to make sure, but, once again, they’re dry. It feels like he’s been crying, though, a feeling that he doesn’t experience all that often. He’s always been in control of his emotions; Dean calls him a “bleeding heart”, but there’s a huge difference between feeling things and letting your feelings rule you.

“Sam?”

Sam blinks. Gabriel’s head is stuck out into the aisle, the rest of him hidden behind the panels of his cubicle. His lips are blue, and, after a moment, Sam notices the lollipop that Gabriel is holding, carefully pointed away from himself.

“You okay? You look a bit peaky.”

Sam’s breath shudders in and out of him. A few other people are sticking their heads out into the aisle, examining him. Sam tries to think about what he looks like, standing here, his breathing harsh and his fists – and he’s just noticed this – clenched at his sides. He probably looks like he’s having some kind of nervous breakdown, when in reality the only thing running through his head is _what if it had been Dean?_

“C’mon, kiddo,” he hears, and then something warm curls around his wrist and pulls him forward – he looks down, and examines Gabriel’s fingers, his thumb laid over the beat of Sam’s pulse. “Come in here and sit yourself down.”

Sam gives in to the tugging without much argument. Gabriel scoots back, making room for Sam to sit in the single, small plastic chair available to him. The cubicle is so small that, when Sam drops down into the chair, his legs splay out, and end up bumping against Gabriel’s. Sam looks at the places where they touch – Gabriel’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, Gabriel’s foot nudging against his own – and he realizes that his breathing has slowed.

“Talk to me, Sam.”

“Sorry.” Sam takes a deep breath. Another. When he glances up, Gabriel’s expression is concerned. “I just…had sort of a bad experience with my advisor.” He swallows. “Mr. Adler.”

“Zachariah?”

“Yeah. You – ” But Sam stops, doesn’t finish his question, because of course they know each other. They’re colleagues, aren’t they? For all he knows, all the advisors get together in the summer and host barbecue parties. He closes his eyes. _This was a mistake._

“What did my asshole cousin do now?”

Something in Sam’s chest lurches; the panicked bird is back. “He’s your…?” He dares to open his eyes again, half afraid of what he’ll see – Gabriel’s face, no longer sympathetic, but dismissive? Or worse, angry that Sam has found a problem with his relative? But when he actually _looks_ , Gabriel’s eyes are focused on a point somewhere over Sam’s shoulder. Angry, yes, but not at him.

“Forget who he is, for now,” Gabriel says, his attention refocusing on Sam. “Just tell me what happened. I promise, nothing goes beyond these four walls. Well, three, but you get the picture.” And then Gabriel pulls open one of his desk drawers, and removes from it a small machine – it looks like a speaker. He sets it on his desk, and then flips a discreet switch on its back. White noise begins to pour out of the speaker, obscuring the soft, murmured sounds of the other people in the advising center.

“It’s not much,” Gabriel says, “but you also have my personal guarantee that I will hunt down anyone who happens to listen in on us and personally introduce them to the gun show.” He raises his arms and flexes, and Sam snorts. Gabriel isn’t at all muscular – he’s got broad palms, but lean arms. Not exactly the type to inspire fear in those who behold him. Still, Sam believes that he can do something. All thoughts of mistakes have vanished, for now.

Slowly, haltingly, the truth spills out of him. “He’s always been…off, with me. I don’t know if he’s that way with other students, but he’s treated me badly since I was a freshman. I mean, he does everything he’s supposed to do, but when he isn’t ignoring me he’s insulting me. It used to be little things. Things about my hair, or about how I was sitting…I tried to ignore it.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Gabriel murmurs. “You aren’t the first person to have problems with him. There are a lot of people who want him gone, but he’s good at covering his tracks, and no one has been willing to file a complaint.”

“I will,” Sam says. His mouth feels dry as cotton. “He _looked me up_ , sir. He started talking about my mother, and my father.”

“Does he _know_ your mom and dad?”

“No! He must have gone on the internet or something. My family…” Sam swallows. “There was an accident, when I was a baby. My dad, and my brother and I, we were in the newspaper a few times. And then dad got arrested once or twice.” More like six times, and that was only what Sam _remembered_. “I guess we’re not that hard to look up.”

“Google-stalking you isn’t part of Zachariah’s job description.” Gabriel leans forward, and his knee presses against Sam’s. His eyes are very wide, and his irises seemingly rimmed with gold. Sam is entranced. “I need you to tell me what he said. As exact as you can remember it.”

Sam thinks. Most of the last few minutes in Mr. Adler’s office are blurred by a stunned sort of rage, but he remembers… “I told him that I enjoy my classes, and my major, and then he said that it’s easy to…it’s easy to enjoy something when you’ve been told that it’s your destiny. He told me that he knew what happened…he knew about the accident. I told him he didn’t know anything about my family, and he said that he knew my father…” Sam blinks. _I know your father was an alcoholic._ “…had problems. He said that ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’.”

“Jesus Christ,” Gabriel says, and leans back slightly. Every line of his body – from his frown, to his shoulders, to the way he’s holding his hands – is tense and unhappy. “I am honestly surprised he hasn’t been arrested for harassment yet. That _fucker_.”

 _Unprofessional_ , Sam thinks, but right now, in this moment, he can’t bring himself to fault Gabriel for it.

“You said you’d be willing to file a complaint?”

“Yeah.” His voice is shaky. Or is that just what he expects to hear? “I mean, what if this happened to someone else? Someone…” Sam trails off. _Someone who couldn’t handle it._ He doesn’t know who that someone is, or what their circumstances might be, but he knows that he’s sort of uniquely suited to handle verbal abuse. It’s something he’d gotten used to, when he was a kid.

“It has happened to someone else,” Gabriel says. “A couple of someone elses. But none of those someone elses were willing to stand up to him. I’ll tell you right now, you don’t have to file the complaint under your real name. If you use a pseudonym, I’m willing to back you up. I’ll tell the dean that you’re worried about Zachariah stalking you back to your house or something. Considering what he’s already done, that’s not an unreasonable worry.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll be okay.” His throat is dry. He wants a glass of water, but he also doesn’t want to leave just yet. Gabriel’s leg is still pressing up against his.

Distantly, he can hear the sound of rain.

Something nudges against his hand, warm and solid, and Sam looks down. Gabriel is touching him, softly, as if he might leap away. In his other hand, he’s holding a piece of paper. When did that happen?

“Here,” Gabriel says, and offers the scrap he’s holding. Sam takes it, but doesn’t unfold it. “That’s my email. My personal email. If Zachariah gives you any more trouble, _especially_ if he seeks you out to do it, let me know. I’m done putting up with his shit, and so is everyone else.”

Sam numbly stuffs the piece of paper into his pocket. Gabriel won’t stop _looking_ at him. It’s a look Sam doesn’t usually get from people other than his brother: concern. For _him_.

“I have to get home,” he says, and, suddenly, that is _all_ he wants to do. He just wants to go back to the apartment and go to sleep, curled up beneath a heavy blanket, with nothing to distract him but the sound of Dean playing Call of Duty or Halo 2 in the living room. Maybe the sound of the microwave as Dean makes himself some macaroni and cheese.

“It’s raining,” Gabriel points out. “You live on campus?”

“No, an apartment.” Sam reaches into his pocket, frowning. “I can call my brother, he’ll bring the car…” His phone. Where’s his phone? He checks his other pocket: an eraser, lint, and the paper with Gabriel’s email address on it. No phone. He huffs, frustrated with himself. “I’m sorry, but…do you have a phone I can use? Just for a minute.”

“I’ll do you one better than that.” Gabriel pushes his chair back, standing. He raises his arms over his head in a long stretch while Sam watches, confused. “Point me in the right direction and I’ll give you a ride.”

“Oh…you don’t have to do that, Mr. Novak, I…”

“Gabriel, please. ‘Mr. Novak’ is my father. Or one of my brothers.”

“Gabriel,” Sam repeats, and Gabriel…smiles. His eyes are so bright.

“C’mon, kiddo. It’s cold outside. Let me drive you home. It’ll be faster this way, and I’m sure your brother is worried. He seems the type to fume in silence.”

That startles a laugh out of Sam. “Yeah. Yeah, he kind of is.”

 _What do I have to lose?_ Sam thinks.

 _Everything,_ logic responds. _You’re not like this, not normally. This will pass if you ignore it. He’s rude and more than ten years your senior, he works for the college, he’s a man. Is it worth it? Is it really?_

 _Maybe,_ Sam thinks. _Maybe_.

Gabriel, one foot in the cubicle and one in the aisle, says, “You coming or not?”

Sam slowly rolls his shoulders. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m coming.”


End file.
